NO PLACE LIKE HOME WHERE NEXT FOR CLIMATE REFUGEES? A REPORT BY THE Protecting People and Planet NO PLACE LIKE HOME / CLIMATE REFUGEES 1 NO PLACE LIKE HOME Protecting People and Planett 1 Amwell Street London, EC1R 1UL, United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)207 239 3310 Fax: +44 (0)207 713 6501 Email: info@ejfounda�on.org www.ejfounda�on.org The Environmental Jus�ce Founda�on is a UK-based NGO CLIMATE CAMPAIGN � MISSION STATEMENT working interna�onally to protect the natural environment and human rights. EJF is a charity registered in England and Wales Climate change is set to create millions of environmental (No. 1088128). refugees – people forced from their homes and land – by rising temperatures, sea-level change and extreme weather events. PDF versions of this report can be found at Many will be among our planet’s poorest and most vulnerable www.ejfounda�on.org/reports people. These will be the first vic�ms of our failure to prevent climate change. People, who without interna�onal help and Comments on the report, requests for further copies new binding agreements on assistance, will have nowhere to or specific queries about EJF should be directed to go and no means to survive. info@ejfounda�on.org. EJF is dedicated to arguing their case. Pu�ng the call to This document should be cited as: EJF (2009) No Place Like governments and our poli�cal leaders for a new agreement Home - Where next for climate refugees? Environmental on environmental refugees, guaranteeing them rights and Jus�ce Founda�on: London assistance and a fair claim to our shared world. ISBN No. 1-904523-20-X EJF is also commi�ed to empowering individuals and organisa�ons to take posi�ve ac�ons to reduce their impact on This report was researched, wri�en and produced by the the natural environment; encouraging them to act now, before Environmental Jus�ce Founda�on. the irreversible effects of climate change take hold. Layout and cover design by Guilherme Altmayer. Cover image: © UNHCR/May 2008 Printed on 100% post- consumer recycled paper using prin�ng using simitri toner and powered by 100% renewable energy by a carbon neutral company. EJF would like to thank the following people and their organisa�ons for the invaluable �me and assistance with informa�on, ideas and visual materials used in this report: Charlie Kronick (Greenpeace); Collec�f Argos; FIELD; Gary Braasch; Na�onal Tidal Centre, Australian Bureau of EJF is a member of Meteorology; Peggy Sullivan (NOAA); Premier Talagi (Niue) and the Premier’s Office; President Nasheed (Maldives) and the President’s Office; Professor Frank Biermann. In thanking these individuals, we in no way imply that they or their organisa�ons endorse the report’s content. 2 NO PLACE LIKE HOME / CLIMATE REFUGEES NO PLACE LIKE HOME © European Communi�es, ECHO/ Bernard Delpuech CONTENTS Execu�ve Summary 4 Introduc�on 6 Making Sense of Climate Change 8 A Rising Storm? 10 How climate change will affect us all 12 Where next for climate refugees? 14 Too much water 16 Paradise lost? Disappearing islands 18 Africa 20 Where next? 24 Conclusions 26 Recommenda�ons 27 References 28 NO PLACE LIKE HOME / CLIMATE REFUGEES 3 • Every year climate change is a�ributable for the deaths of over 300,000 people, seriously affects a further 325 million people, and causes economic losses of US$125 billion1. Four billion people are vulnerable to the effects of climate change and 500-600 million people – around 10% of the planet’s human popula�on – are at extreme risk1,2. As such, climate change has been recognised as a fundamental threat to human rights. • The scien�fic evidence of human-induced global climate change is overwhelming. There is a significant chance that the world will be warmer by 4°C by 2100, with profound ecological and social impacts. Even a warming of 2°C – which is considered by many to be a best-case scenario – entails a devasta�ng future for at least 660 million people3. • The most recent (2007) Assessment Report by the United Na�ons Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that weather pa�erns have become more extreme, with more frequent and more intense rainfall events, more intense heat waves and prolonged droughts; the �ming and loca�on of rainfall has altered4. Weather-related disasters (storms, hurricanes, floods, heat waves and droughts) have more than doubled in number over the last 20 years5. There are now over 400 weather-related disasters per year and almost 90 million people require immediate assistance as a result; projec�ons suggest that by 2030, this figure could be as high as 350 million1. • Almost two decades ago, the IPCC suggested that the “gravest effects of climate change may be those on human migra�on”6. Environmental factors leading to migra�on may be fast occurring – such as more intense tropical cyclones – or longer-term, such as deser�fica�on, or sea • The IPCC 4th Assessment Report predicts sea level rise level rise that inundates low-lying regions. Longer-term in the range of 18-59 cm during the 21st century4. More consequences of climate change will include increased recent longer term modelling on behalf of the Organisa�on health problems, declining food security, soil infer�lity and for Economic Coopera�on and Development (OECD) is drought, together with diminished access to freshwater, predic�ng mean sea level rises of between 0.35 cm and and infrastructure damage and disrup�on. 9m between 2000 and 25009. Nearly one-third of coastal countries have more than 10% of their na�onal land within • In Africa, an es�mated 10 million people have migrated or 5m of mean sea level9. 11 of those countries have all of been displaced over the last two decades mainly because their territory below 5m10. The existence of five of these of environmental degrada�on and deser�fica�on7. The countries would be threatened by a 1m rise in sea level11. most widely cited figure for the number of ‘environmental refugees’ is 200 million people who could be forced from • Environmental stress caused by climate change is most their homes by 2050, of which 150 million would be affec�ng those communi�es and regions least able to adapt ‘climate refugees’8. to change. Economically and socially disadvantaged and marginalised people will be worst affected. Developing • The majority of people will be internally displaced, countries stand to bear over nine-tenths of the climate migra�ng only short distances from home. Rela�vely few change burden meaning, 98% of the seriously affected are likely to migrate interna�onally, permanently rese�ling people and 99% of all deaths from weather-related disasters, in other countries. along with over 90% of the total economic losses1. 4 NO PLACE LIKE HOME / CLIMATE REFUGEES “We must not lose sight of exis�ng human rights principles in the tug and push of interna�onal climate change nego�a�ons. A human rights lens reminds us there are reasons beyond economics and enlightened self-interest for states to act on climate change...” Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. • Too li�le water in some regions and too much water in others, will bring about what is in effect a forced migra�on on an unprecedented scale, and with it great human suffering. This report argues that urgent interna�onal ac�on to halt climate change is essen�al and that much can indeed be done; alongside this the interna�onal community must recognise that forced environmental migra�on, in par�cular due to sea-level rise or drought and deser�fica�on must have equitable, immediate and long- term solu�ons to protect those most at risk. • Paradoxically, many of the countries and popula�ons that will be most affected – specifically including those in lowlying areas and arid regions – also have some of the lowest per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The 50 Least Developed Countries contribute less than 1 percent of global carbon emissions1.The USA, Russia, Japan, Germany, © Laurent Weyl/Collec�f Argos Canada and the UK were among the top 10 emi�ers of carbon in 200412. • The UN Framework Conven�on on Climate Change • There is no interna�onally recognised legal term for people (UNFCCC) es�mated that an addi�onal US$49-171 billion who migrate as a result of environmental degrada�on and will be needed annually by 2030 for adapta�on to climate climate change. A new legal defini�on is required for these change13. To put these figures in context, the nine biggest people and one that does not compromise the status, US banks paid US$32.6bn in bonuses in 200815; and in percep�ons or treatment of refugees under the 1951 Geneva the same year, US$150 billion was paid by the US federal Conven�on.The 1951 UN Conven�on Rela�ng to the Status government to bailout insurance company American of Refugees (1951 Geneva Conven�on) is the principal Insurance Group Inc16. Meanwhile, weather-related interna�onal legal instrument benefi�ng refugees. Dra�ed in disasters have cost as much as $230 billion over the past the immediate a�ermath of the Second World War, its focus five years1. is on those people who are unable or willing to be in their country of origin due to fear of persecu�on “for reasons of • EJF contends that a new mul�lateral legal instrument race, religion, na�onality, membership of a par�cular social - either a Protocol under the United Na�ons Framework group or poli�cal opinion”.